


Slow Show

by verdenal



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-12
Updated: 2015-02-12
Packaged: 2018-03-12 02:20:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3340001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verdenal/pseuds/verdenal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the end, Will Graham is anyone's man but his own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Slow Show

**Author's Note:**

> Alternate ending for S2, posted about a year after I started it.

Will Graham is his own man. That’s what he tells himself as he lets Jack stick the hook in the back of his neck, and when Hannibal reaches back to tug on the line with his knowing smirk. Will is his own lure.

In his dreams he’s at the river, alone. Abigail is long gone. Hannibal is there in the water, the dark tips of his horns protruding like shark fins, and then Will is there under the water with him, and there is something sharp in his back. He can’t tell if it’s a hook or something coming from inside of him; he remembers the dreams where he becomes the stag. His subconscious isn’t exactly subtle. Will wonders who’s at the other end of the line, if anyone is. It doesn’t matter either way, because he has all the time in the world to swim away from those black hands as they come up around his neck, and still he doesn’t move. Something in his back moves—it must be a hook, then—and Hannibal’s hands hold him tighter. Will is suddenly aware that he’s been holding his breath and he starts to choke and—

then he wakes up, damp with sweat. He forces himself to get up; the sun is already starting to rise and he can hear the dogs stirring. There’s no point in trying to get back to sleep now. 

Will tries not to let the dream weigh on his mind. The substance of it will be lost to him in a few hours anyway, and for the first time in a long time he feels in control of himself, of his thoughts. He doesn’t need to hunt through his subconscious for clues to the truth. Not anymore.

;

Days later Will is scrubbing Randall Tier’s blood off of his floor and thinking about the body in his barn. Hannibal had, for once, held off giving his opinion on the matter. It was up to Will, he said, to decide how best to treat Randall Tier in death. 

Will doesn’t think about how easy it was to string Tier up and imagine his head on top of a sabertooth skeleton. Hannibal had at least helped him to move the body, and set it up. He’s gone now, which is probably for the best. Will can’t stop imagining Hannibal hanging where Tier’s suit is now, can’t stop remembering how Tier’s face felt under his knuckles, how he had wondered if Hannibal’s would feel the same.

Winston whines from somewhere to Will’s left, and Will sighs, “I know, buddy. Everything’s a mess.” Winston pads over to the informal barrier Will made to keep the dogs away from the blood and broken glass and just looks at him. Will’s never been uncomfortable with his dogs before. That’s precisely why he likes dogs more than people; they don’t put him on edge, they don’t ask the wrong questions, they don’t look at him like a museum specimen, but something in Winston’s eyes makes him sick to his stomach. He regrets that this happened in his home, but of course Hannibal would take that from him, too. Will thinks instead of the crunch of bone and the slick warmth of blood. This is what he wants, not what Jack wants, or what Hannibal wants. This is all him. It feels good to have something like that, a private goal. The first step towards taking his life back.

;

“Did I just spend the last hour watching you and Hannibal argue about why you chose to mutilate Randall Tier’s body?” Jack asks as soon as Will steps inside his office.

“It was in self-defense. He attacked one of my dogs and burst through my window.”

“And you did what Hannibal would have done with the body.”

“How else am I going to get his attention?”

Jack sighs. Will feels guilty for pressing him. He knows the crime scene was exhausting for him, that he didn’t like watching Will and Hannibal circle one another. Jack is not by nature a liar. 

It had felt good, though, to look at what he had done and know that the rest of the CSI team were working beside the killer, completely unawares. It felt powerful. Did Hannibal feel like that when he watched them chasing after him, always two steps behind? He must, given how often he talked about the God feels: powerful. That’s the word Will remembers from their earliest conversations. Killing must feel good to God, too. Will doesn’t necessarily care much for murder—he feels the weight of each life lost like an albatross around his neck—but it’s a nice change to feel in control of something.

“I need to know,” Jack says, holding Will’s gaze, “that you aren’t going to get in too deep.”

Will laughs. It’s a hollow sound. “Trust me, Jack, I won’t lose sight of what I’m there to do.”

;

He feels bad about Freddie. It had seemed so natural, after persuasion had failed—and how could he compare himself to Hannibal, when he had failed to get her to put down the gun—to follow her, to rip her hair, to terrify her. He hates Freddie Lounds, but he hates that cruel part of himself even more. She doesn’t seem to begrudge him his revenge, not while she’s still basking in the glow of being an important part of the secret plot to catch the Chesapeake Ripper.

Will thinks about her all through dinner, as Hannibal gives him significant looks from under his hooded eyes. What would it be like to feast on Lounds herself? Awful, probably. 

“I’m impressed at your initiative, Will,” Hannibal says once his plate is cleared.

“Freddie Lounds never was a friend of mine,” Will reminds him.

“She did torment you,” Hannibal agrees. “She was convinced you were a killer.”

“Ironic,” Will says, and Hannibal smirks. 

“And she didn’t even need your help to believe it,” he adds. Hannibal raises his eyebrows.

“Did you imagine you were killing me this time, too?”

“No,” he admits. “Not this time.”

Hannibal’s expression shifts minutely, but he says nothing as they clear the table. He stands just a shade too close in the kitchen. Will could move out of his orbit; this was never part of their relationship before, but turning into Hannibal’s arms feels inevitable.

Will wants—he wants to hurt Hannibal, and he wants to keep him right here forever, he wants to kill him, he wants to fuck him—Will wants too much. Hannibal’s hands are large and warm on his neck, on his jaw, and they hold him still. 

He’s waiting for something, and his glinting predator eyes watch Will. Will holds his ground. 

Hannibal must not find what he’s looking for, because he lets Will go and retreats. Will crushes the impulse to follow him, and they finish cleaning in a tense silence, the first of its kind to stretch between them

;

It is Mason Verger of all people, who in the end gives Will exactly what he wants: Hannibal and the knife pressed tight against Will’s palm. Hannibal smiles down at him and Will sees again the spray of blood from his neck, feels it hot and wet on his cheeks.

In the background Veger warns him not to be unduly enthusiastic. Will hates him more than he hates Hannibal; there is nothing in Verger at all that could redeem him. Will’s choice was made the instant they were given an audience. He frees Hannibal and the world goes dark.

;

He resents Hannibal more for letting Verger feed his face to Will’s dogs than for any of the violence he commits against the man. Hannibal’s expression as he breaks Verger’s neck is something Will has never seen on him before, something vacant and dark, a challenge issued in his unbroken eye contact with Will. He demands to be seen. He demands to be known.

This time Will comes to him.

;

The house is eerily still as Will leads Hannibal up the stairs. Mason has been collected by his sister; once she got over the shock of his skinless face something bright and dark appeared at the corners of her smile, and the dogs, well-fed, are asleep.

There are a thousand things Will should be feeling right now: fear, having just seen Hannibal break a man’s neck precisely enough to leave him alive; pride at having drawn Hannibal closer to him, closer to revealing himself; dread at what Jack will do if he finds out; nervousness, since his room is a mess compared to Hannibal’s home, and he thinks he forgot to wash his sheets. Instead all he feels is the white-hot lick of desire curling up through his stomach. 

Hannibal kisses him once the door swings shut behind them. His mouth is surprisingly cool on Will’s, his movements controlled if not clinical. It infuriates Will, so he presses himself closer against Hannibal and drags his teeth over Hannibal’s lower lip and resolutely doesn’t think about how many cannibals there are in the room.

Hannibal retaliates by tightening his grip on Will’s hips. His hands span more of Will’s body that Will had anticipated, and Hannibal steers them towards the bed. He pushes Will down, and his teeth grate across Will’s lips as a parting gift.

“This is what you want,” Hannibal says, but Will hears it for what it is: his last chance at an out. 

“Yes.”

Hannibal blinks twice rapidly, and Will wonders if he hadn’t expected it to be so easy, and he shifts his weight, and then he descends.

;

Later, what Will remembers most—more even than the feel of Hannibal’s hands on his bare skin, or the press of Hannibal’s cock as he entered—was how strong Hannibal was. There was nothing yielding in him, nothing forgiving. Will had always placed the locus of Hannibal’s evil in his mind and his wicked tongue, but he wonders if maybe he was wrong, if it was something total and all-encompassing, born out even in the minutiae of Hannibal’s skin and bone.

;

In the end, of course, their center does not hold. Truth is the rough beast slouching and it is born in the blood coating Hannibal’s floor. 

“Go,” he rasps. The look Hannibal gives him is nothing Will’s ever seen before: wondrous, proud. Will wants to follow. But he is not _not_ Jack’s man, and Jack is bleeding out on the floor. Will could have—

There are a thousand things Will could have done to change this, but Jack is bleeding out on the floor and Will is still Jack’s man. The least he can do is stay. That he can bear. 

Jack tries to scream as Hannibal makes for the door. Will steps aside to let him leave, keeps his gun pointed straight ahead. Hannibal’s hand, wet with blood, grazes Will’s waist as he passes. Will does not need to speak for Hannibal to know he will find him. The knowledge is comforting; to accept it is a sweet release Will welcomes after so long a fight. 

In this tangle web of possession Will Graham is anyone’s man but his own.

In the end, it feels good to give in.


End file.
